Latest / EGGS! The Podcast / Eggs 463: How Immersive Customer Experiences Drive Business Growth with Jason Friedman

Transcript

Eggs 463: How Immersive Customer Experiences Drive Business Growth with Jason Friedman · EGGS! The Podcast

0:12
Hey guys, and welcome back to Exit Podcast.
0:14
But before we get started, I want to talk to you about our
0:16
sponsor, Taylor Style. This is that point in the year
0:19
when things start moving again. Q1 is over, calendars fill up,
0:22
travel picks up, and suddenly you need to look a little more
0:25
put together than you have the last few months.
0:27
That's why I like Taylor Style. It's a menswear rental and
0:30
styling service that combines real human stylist with AI to
0:33
send you clothes that actually makes sense for your life,
0:36
whether that's meetings, dinner, events, or being on the road.
0:39
So instead of time shopping, guessing what works, or rotating
0:42
the same few things every week, Taylor gives you solid options
0:45
that fit well, work together, and make it easy to show up
0:47
sharp. And when you're done, you send
0:49
it back. No laundry, no dry cleaning, no
0:52
extra. Hassle.
0:54
I'm a subscriber right now and every few weeks I get a box with
0:57
handpicked outfits chosen by a real stylist refined by their
1:00
AI. And the crazy part is they
1:01
actually nail. It most of the time.
1:03
Stuff I would never go by but I end up wearing nonstop.
1:06
Just because it works. And honestly, that's the value
1:09
for me. It's one less thing to think
1:11
about and it helps me look pulled together without having
1:13
to spend any time on it. To check it out yourself, go to
1:16
Taylor dot style. That's TAELOR dot style and use
1:20
promo code EGGS to get 25% off your first month.
1:23
Once again, that's TAELOR dot style.
1:26
Use code eggs for 25% off your first month.
1:29
And now, back to the show. Hey everybody.
1:31
Welcome back to Eggs the Podcast.
1:33
Today's special guest is Jason Friedman, founder and CEO at CX
1:36
Formula. Jason, how are you, man?
1:38
I'm great. Ryan.
1:39
How you doing? Doing well.
1:40
Thanks so much for joining us, making the time.
1:42
We really appreciate you. Yeah, I'm excited.
1:44
Very cool. Why don't we kick things off
1:47
with just a brief history of your work history?
1:49
I know you did some lighting in the past that kind of puts me
1:53
and you on the same, same wavelength there, yeah.
1:56
Maybe Yeah, yeah, the the backstage past days.
1:59
Yeah. So you know, my, my, my story
2:02
started in the world of theater, right.
2:04
So as a kid, I was kind of a behind the scenes, built some
2:08
sets, did lighting sounds. I was the AB nerd in school and
2:12
all through my life I was involved with shows.
2:15
One of my dreams ended up to be was like I wanted to go out on
2:18
the road with Rush. They were like my favorite band
2:21
growing up and I had been to one of those, my first concert that
2:25
I went to and. You talked about a great first
2:28
one. Yeah, it was.
2:30
It was awesome. And and I just like, I just
2:33
remember like I it, it was doing the lighting for Rush.
2:36
I just loved it. And so it was one of the goals I
2:38
set for myself. And I went to go right out of
2:40
college. I went to go work for the
2:42
company that had been providing all their lighting gear and the
2:45
team and whatever. And I went out with Fleetwood
2:48
Mac. I went out with Peter Gabriel
2:50
and I went out with Rush and kind of hit that goal.
2:53
And then from there I went on to do more legit theater.
2:56
So I did like Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ, Superstar
2:58
man of Lamont. So I traveled in all these
3:01
different cities, all these different countries.
3:03
I'm doing the same show night after night to a different
3:07
audience. And there was this crazy thing
3:09
that I experienced, right? It's like every single show,
3:12
whether it's a rock'n'roll show or a theater show with a
3:16
different audience, different city, different everything,
3:20
people had the same reaction in the same spots.
3:23
So they laughed at the same spot, they cried at the same
3:25
spot, they clapped at the same spot, they jumped to their feet
3:27
at the same spot, they started singing along at the same spot,
3:30
like no matter what. And it was like, holy moly, this
3:33
is amazing. Like you just kind of have this
3:35
realization that there's a pattern to this, right?
3:37
And so having been on the production side, I was, I was an
3:41
assistant lighting designer and a programmer.
3:43
So I got involved in the pre production conversations, not
3:46
just the shows. And, and as I started like
3:49
seeing the pattern, I'm like, wait, we actually decided that
3:52
that's what we wanted to have happen.
3:53
And then we made it happen through the scripting, through
3:56
the setting, through the, the, the queuing, through all the
3:59
things that we did, the costumes, the interactions,
4:01
whatever. And it was actually all
4:04
intentional. And I was like, wow, like, I
4:06
wonder if you could do this in business?
4:09
Like so because I always wanted to, I was an entrepreneur, you
4:11
know, as a kid, I did have my own bunch of, you know, lemonade
4:14
stand businesses and what have you.
4:16
And I was like, that would be really wild.
4:18
And so my business partner, best friend Drew and I, we've been
4:21
friends since we're five years old, been doing this for a way,
4:24
way too long. And we said, you know, let's try
4:26
this. And we started doing it and it
4:28
worked. Like we could actually have our
4:30
customers get the results we wanted by design.
4:35
It wasn't an accident. It was by it was intention.
4:38
And so we started doing this with big brands, like we
4:40
stumbled into it when we brands like Footlocker and Armani and
4:44
Bank of America and Disney and Universal Studios and then
4:47
universities like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Duke, and we
4:50
were able to help. Them whether it was raising
4:52
money with donors by having the donors learn about the things
4:55
they're doing and get really engaged and really excited and
4:58
take out their checks and write $1,000,000 checks.
5:00
Or it was retailers that were trying to, you know, sell
5:03
advanced financial things like get people to open up a home
5:06
equity loan because they were afraid they didn't know what it
5:08
was. And getting them educated and
5:09
having them take those steps. We use the same things and the
5:12
principles that we learned in theatre to do it in business.
5:15
And it created this awesome awesome.
5:17
World. And so like, I've just, I'm not
5:20
in theatre anymore, but I'm still in theatre, if that makes
5:23
sense. Yeah, yeah.
5:25
Can can I? Can I ask a technical question?
5:30
Back in the day, what time frame was this?
5:33
Like when you the rock'n'roll days were like 939234.
5:42
Ish. OK so that what?
5:45
What controller were you using for programming?
5:48
Well, a bunch, right? So the company that I worked for
5:51
when I was doing the Rock'n'roll was C Factor and they had their
5:53
own called, Oh my gosh, the the light coordinator.
5:59
The C factor light coordinator was the name of their in house
6:02
console. And then it was the whole hog
6:04
and the two and here's we also had the Avalights console for
6:08
all the static stuff. There's a picture of the HOG 500
6:12
I used to use. Yeah.
6:13
Exactly, baby, You know what? This was our our roof that we
6:19
set up for the Fiesta Bowl. Yep.
6:22
And this, this is Ryan that that show.
6:27
As. A 19 year old so a. 21 year old
6:29
maybe? Yeah, no, it's funny.
6:32
You know, it's interesting that the insight that you came
6:33
across, which is this idea that there's sort of this common
6:36
thread between humans, there's, you know, we react in certain
6:39
ways to certain things. There's stimuli you can provide
6:41
that will invoke a certain type of reaction is actually the
6:44
insight we've had from doing this podcast, over 350 some
6:47
interviews and stuff like that. What our version of this is that
6:50
basically everybody has got some degree of creative juice in
6:54
them, for lack of a better term, right?
6:55
And and we use it in different ways.
6:56
Some people start businesses, other people invent things, you
6:59
know, whatever it is. Yeah.
7:00
But whatever that is, that sort of makes us all or, you know,
7:04
this, this inherent creativity and everybody is what ties
7:06
everyone together. And so as we've done our
7:09
interviews and things like that over the years, I mean, even
7:11
though we talked to people from a myriad different sources,
7:14
they, you know, basically the, the truths they share are
7:17
universal. So I think it's really
7:19
interesting that you came to it through that other angle.
7:21
And, you know, as Mike was sort of indicating, he and I spent a
7:23
lot of time in the music industry too.
7:25
Of course, in that era I was working with much smaller bands
7:27
than Rush and Fleetwood Mac, but.
7:30
I did too. I did too.
7:31
I just mentioned the big ones. But.
7:33
Nonetheless, those were the fun times, right?
7:35
And, and so, and I can, I can totally relate to what you're
7:38
talking about. And I think more than anything,
7:41
the thing that really stands out about what you're saying is
7:43
there's this quote that I think we stole from your website or
7:46
something, but it's this concept of stopping random acts of
7:48
marketing. And I think it's really
7:50
important conceptually because so many people do just kind of
7:53
market for market's sake. And it seems like what you're
7:57
talking about is also something we've really landed on in the
7:59
show, which is intentionality and, you know, not just doing
8:03
something because, hey, everybody's on social media.
8:05
So we should be on social media too.
8:07
Rather it's, you know, we're choosing Twitter or Instagram
8:11
because that's the right channel for our people.
8:13
And we want to invoke this kind of reaction.
8:14
And, you know, it is that thoughtful response.
8:16
So I think that you know what you're, what you're saying
8:20
anyway, is ringing very true to me.
8:22
I love that. Yeah.
8:23
I love the alignment, you know? And what I found is it is that
8:26
intentionality is the core of everything.
8:29
And the thing that's so crazy, like, again, I learned it, this
8:32
Mr. Miyagi wax on, wax off just over the years, not knowing what
8:36
I was learning. And then one day I could, like,
8:38
win the match, right? It was just, that's just kind of
8:39
how it came about. But what's so interesting is
8:42
you're in theater, you're forced to focus on the audience.
8:47
Everything is about the audience.
8:48
It's like what are the sight lines?
8:49
What are the angles? What are they seeing?
8:51
What happens when we want to do a scene change how we make sure
8:54
that they they don't lose their attention and they start talking
8:56
and go on their cell phone or whatever.
8:58
So everything is focused on them.
9:00
In business, we don't always have that intensity and focus on
9:05
our customers and we lose sight of that.
9:07
And a lot of times we get so myopic and look at it through
9:10
our lens as the company. We forget to flip the script and
9:13
look at it through the other way as the customer.
9:16
And so it's so important for all of us, any business that you're
9:20
in, right? Even if you're in just a
9:22
relationship with your spouse or your kids, we got to look at
9:25
like, what is that other person feeling and seeing and, and what
9:29
is what's happening for them? Because we understand what's
9:32
happening for us, but we take for granted that other side.
9:35
And so essentially. Everything we do.
9:37
Yeah. You're, you're essentially just
9:39
producing the sales process and flow.
9:42
Can you maybe talk about this the transition period from going
9:47
from lighting guy, Broadway guy, production guy to let's put this
9:52
into sales process and work with business and maybe talk about
9:57
that first client? Because you know that that had
10:02
to be a learning process and going the first couple events or
10:07
the things that you did in that world is where you learn the
10:10
most from and you start honing in your processes and and
10:13
building from that. So maybe breakdown those first
10:16
couple events? Yeah, that's great.
10:18
So you know our I'm going to talk about my second client
10:23
because my first client had nothing to do with where we are
10:25
today, but my second client was actually Footlocker, right?
10:29
So shoe store. Well, that's a big kind of
10:31
second client, actually. That's it.
10:33
It was. It was, Listen, it's a small
10:36
world, you know that, right? Like we, we all like 6° of
10:38
separation. So the way I got that client was
10:41
I had been an assistant lighting designer for a little thing at
10:44
Universal Studios. It was, they do this thing
10:47
called Halloween Horror Nights. So they bring in outside
10:49
designers and people that help like, you know, make it a cool
10:52
event within the theme park. And so the there was a lighting
10:56
designer. I was his assistant.
10:57
I came down, did that. And then the guy that happened
11:01
to be CEO of the Footlocker Corporation at the time happened
11:06
to be a previous Disney exec and he knew that designer and he saw
11:10
what we were doing is like, hey, can you guys come?
11:12
And we want to create a store of the future.
11:14
Will you guys come in and kind of figure it out with us?
11:15
So they saw at this was like 9697, right?
11:22
So they saw like online was just starting, like people were
11:26
starting to sell things online and they were like, look, we
11:29
want to make sure that people come and buy in the store and
11:32
it's great and it's fun and it, and it's, it's better than
11:34
buying online because they knew that they were going to have
11:36
lots of, you know, price competition from just random
11:40
people trying to sell lower priced stuff.
11:42
And so they had that foresight, which was really wild at the
11:45
time, right? And So what we started talking
11:47
about was what would a store? Of the future look like what
11:50
would how would it how would it function?
11:52
Why would it be great and whatever.
11:54
And so they found this amazing. Space.
11:57
It's right outside of Boston, in Watertown, MA.
12:00
It was called the Art. It still is the Arsenal.
12:02
Mall. And so it's like this old like
12:04
army arsenal building. So it's kind of a.
12:05
Cool place, like open rafters, like big high ceilings and
12:09
whatever. And they wanted to build it
12:10
there and they had a store there.
12:11
And we walked in and they're like, we want screens and we
12:15
want lights and we want sound and all this.
12:17
And we're like, OK, cool. So like where would you see
12:19
this? Like we were just literally
12:20
staying in the space and like, well, there's outlets up there.
12:23
Let's put the screens there. And I'm like, I don't think we
12:26
should decide where things go based on it's easy to plug it in
12:29
like. So then I started just asking
12:32
questions like. Like.
12:33
Why do we want a? Screen in the first place.
12:35
Let's say that the customer sees the screen.
12:37
Then what? What do you want that?
12:39
To what what action do you want them to take after seeing the
12:42
screen? Like what we want them to buy
12:44
stuff. I'm like, OK, and so what's
12:46
going to be on the screen that's going to make them want to buy
12:48
stuff? And they're like, we hadn't even
12:50
thought of that. Like we just wanted screens,
12:51
right? And so as we started to reverse
12:53
engineer what we wanted the customers behaviors to be, we
12:57
started to think about like what would, what would, what, what?
13:00
Journey could they go on through the store that would have them
13:04
have these feelings have this excitement have this desire to
13:07
maybe purchase a new product or try on something else or maybe
13:10
see something that they would not normally see because they're
13:13
just in a hurry to go grab a pair of shoes and leave right
13:16
and So what we started to do was think about what what would what
13:20
would that look like Then we started to look at some stats.
13:23
And data like. What, what customers bought more
13:26
stuff in their other stores? Like what made people buy more?
13:29
And what we started to find was that if a customer had a
13:32
positive experience working with a a person, the more time they
13:36
spent in the store, the, the more was the total card value,
13:39
right? The more that they purchased and
13:41
so we started. Thinking about like, how could
13:43
we get them to enjoy being in the store and actually go
13:45
through the store the way we would want them to?
13:48
Like if we could create the perfect sales experience, what
13:51
would that look like? And so we wanted it to be where
13:54
and when they walked in the store, the energy shifted like
13:58
they got into that athletic, like, I feel good in here.
14:01
Like, I want to like, look at that.
14:02
I want to lose weight. I want to work out.
14:04
I want to, you know, have the right shoes for the right sport,
14:06
for the right function. You know, I need the right
14:09
shirts, I need the right gloves, I need the right whatever.
14:11
And So what we started to do was like think about all the
14:14
different kinds of people that went in there, the avatars, if
14:16
you will, and what would that look like for each of them on
14:19
their journey. And so when we designed the
14:21
first store. It was designed to pull them in
14:24
as if it was like a lazy river, right?
14:26
If you've ever been on one of those where just there's a
14:28
current that moves you through the space.
14:30
That, you know, that's hilarious that you say that because as
14:33
you've been describing this, what I've been thinking of in my
14:36
head is Disneyland and it's a small world.
14:39
You know, it's like you're literally going through this and
14:41
at the end they got a photo for you to buy.
14:43
You know, it's like here we're going to describe the story and
14:47
it. Is that kind of an idea right?
14:48
We're taking you on that journey and.
14:50
And you're along for the ride, and you're open to it.
14:52
Right. You're not feeling forced,
14:54
you're feeling. Like it's smooth and it flows
14:56
and it's good. And so we, we created media and
14:59
content that was immersive, like truly like the entire store
15:03
would transform in a heartbeat. And it wasn't just spectacle, it
15:07
was actually elevating their heart rate.
15:10
And so we'd have like the first four pieces of media.
15:12
It was like hands, feet, balls. And heartbeat.
15:16
And so it was like some people be juggling.
15:18
Balls and do all these different things with balls and then you
15:21
see that like Footlocker referee, they're a little logo
15:23
guy. You'd hear like a couple tweets
15:24
on the whistle and then all. The lights in the store would
15:26
highlight something that that would be related to basketballs
15:29
or soccer balls or whatever. And so be like, oh, that's kind
15:32
of cool. I want to go check that out.
15:34
And then it would go and it'd be heartbeat.
15:35
So you'd see like crazy media, you'd be hearing the heartbeat.
15:38
It'd start beating faster and faster and people would get
15:41
excited when they're in the store.
15:43
They would noticeably shift their energy.
15:45
And so we were able to showcase more products, explain why
15:49
products were better. And ultimately in that flagship
15:52
pilot, we did this one flagship pilot, we had a 400% increase in
15:56
sales because we were able to do all those things.
16:00
And so they're like, this has got to be a fluke.
16:02
We got to do it again. And so we did another store just
16:04
outside of Chicago in Oak Brook, IL, the headquarters of of
16:08
McDonald's, right? So we did one there and we had
16:10
the same result. We had like a 400% increase in
16:13
sales, right? Then we did another one just
16:16
outside of New York City in Stamford, CT Same thing, 400%
16:20
increase. Were these pop up shops or were
16:22
they? Were they pop up shops for just
16:25
a temporary period or were they permanent installs for?
16:27
No, these were permanent. These are like legit builds.
16:30
Yeah, yeah. So then we rolled it out to
16:33
like, like I said, I was saying like over 1000 locations and
16:37
they had massive. And they weren't all the big.
16:39
Flagship levels, right? The key cities got like the
16:41
biggest ones. So there's an A store, AB store,
16:44
AC store, AD store, an E store, right?
16:46
And we did some in, we did Japan, we did Mexico, we did
16:49
Canada. I mean, it was all over the
16:50
world. And that was our first big foray
16:54
into this. And what we talked about at that
16:57
point was creating really cool like theatricality.
17:02
And we ended up, we were more of, we did all this stuff, but
17:06
we were thinking of ourselves more as a systems integrator, an
17:09
AV company than we were thinking of ourselves as an experiential
17:13
marketing agency in the very beginning, right, We didn't
17:16
know. And the questions that we
17:18
started asking started to elevate us.
17:21
And then other brands would reach out to us saying, why did
17:24
you like, we love what you did and the we want screens, we want
17:27
this. And we say, great, why do you
17:28
want screens? Like we learned to ask the right
17:30
questions in the beginning and all of a sudden people wanted to
17:34
hire us for the strategy first. And so we.
17:38
Started to sell strategy versus peddling plasma screens at the
17:42
time to to make a living. We were selling strategies and
17:45
then they wanted us to do all the execution because the
17:48
strategy, they wanted this design build turnkey solution.
17:53
So our team at the time was like we had the strategists and the
17:57
designers, we had the content creators and the media people,
18:01
and we had the installers and the contractor kind of people,
18:04
all three of those functions in our business.
18:07
And that's what we did for people.
18:08
And we did like all those big brands and we were doing
18:11
rollouts like we'd get a flagship design or what have
18:14
you. And then we'd roll out hundreds
18:16
or thousands of locations. And our team grew very, very
18:19
rapidly. That's how we ended up like on
18:21
the inks list of fastest growing companies because we'd assigned
18:24
big clients and we'd blow this up and end up doing thousands of
18:27
locations. I ended up with over 1500
18:29
employees in cities all over the first the US and then in other
18:33
countries. That's OK.
18:35
And this all started as me in my living room.
18:37
Yeah, Yeah. That's incredible.
18:39
Well, so I mean, it's interesting to me that even and
18:41
maybe it just comes from your production background and Mike
18:44
and I have sort of similar backgrounds.
18:46
I assume that makes us all better people.
18:48
But it's interesting to me that as you started to work through
18:52
even your, I guess your second client with Footlocker, you
18:56
started to get the notion of different ideas, you know, the
18:58
types of questions to ask the the concept of, of creating an
19:01
avatar and moving through that. And that's kind of a popular way
19:05
of doing things today. But I mean, at the time that was
19:07
probably pretty on the edge. And so I wonder if you could
19:10
talk about, you know, how as your business evolved and the
19:12
type of work you evolved and all those things started to grow.
19:15
Can you talk about more, I guess maybe in terms of, you know, how
19:18
somebody might apply this in their own business?
19:21
It's a startup founder or maybe somebody who's, you know, trying
19:24
to improve their business. How?
19:26
Could they begin down sort of the experiential journey of a,
19:30
of a customer, you know, in I guess more of a systematic way
19:34
or the way that you might approach it now is somebody
19:36
who's been doing this for years versus somebody who's just, you
19:39
know, winging it? Yeah, totally.
19:41
So we that's what we teach people today, right?
19:44
Like that's what we do. So we have a formula that we
19:46
sell, we teach, we coach, we have different ways to sell it.
19:48
And so I'm going to just kind of share with you the high level of
19:51
what that is because that's that's what we do, right?
19:54
And so first and foremost, it is about reverse engineering,
19:58
right? And so most people think, OK,
20:00
what's the first thing that we want a customer to do?
20:02
I want you to start at the last thing, right?
20:04
And so we call this again, my theatre background, right?
20:08
Like when there's. Here's the thing, like it was
20:11
the script and and how we brought that script to life that
20:15
made that reaction night after night happen, right?
20:18
So we start with that script and then we bring that script to
20:21
life. So what I want you to start
20:23
with, whatever your business is, it's irrelevant.
20:25
What I want you to start with is you have to really say to
20:29
yourself, my customer just finished something with me.
20:32
They finished my course. They listened to a podcast
20:35
episode. They attended an event, they
20:37
came to my yoga studio. They, you know, we went to my
20:40
driving school, whatever it happens to be.
20:43
And they like, loved it. It was like the best experience
20:46
they've ever had. What would you want them to say
20:50
about their entire journey? Right?
20:52
I want you to script that reaction.
20:54
We call that writing your ideal customer script.
20:56
And so I want you to think about writing it not like, hey, you
20:59
know, I, I, I, I took Ryan's weight loss program and I lost
21:03
20 lbs. It was awesome.
21:05
That's not helpful. I want to be like, you know
21:07
what, I've been on this journey to lose weight for a really long
21:10
time. I've tried 10 or 20 diet
21:12
programs and nothing ever worked.
21:13
But I, I ran into this guy Ryan, and you know, as he was talking,
21:17
he was saying things that were going on in my head that I like,
21:21
I couldn't articulate myself. It was powerful.
21:23
And so I decided to take a chance on his program and I'm so
21:26
glad I did. Let me tell you what happened.
21:28
And then you go through it and you're sharing the journey of
21:30
what happened and people relate to that, right?
21:33
And so by the time that we get to the end, it wasn't the 20 lbs
21:36
that you lost. It was like, I have my life back
21:39
instead of like sitting on my couch Saturday night, not going
21:42
out with friends because I don't have nothing to wear because
21:43
nothing fits me. I have my life back.
21:46
Like I walk into my in my closet, I have options.
21:47
I'm calling friends to go out instead of being the person
21:50
that's receiving the call saying sorry, I'm not going out.
21:52
This has changed my life, right? That's what we want.
21:56
So I want you to think about that.
21:57
I mean. You can make it up even if
21:59
you're starting a business out. We got to make it up and then
22:03
we're going to look at that. It leaves clues of what things
22:05
have to happen along the journey.
22:08
When you do this, you're doing it from the eyes through the
22:11
Glens of your customer, right? Not from the business.
22:14
I want you to step inside those shoes.
22:16
So for many of us, like some of us, have built a business of
22:18
something that we went through ourselves.
22:20
Now we have the curse of knowledge.
22:21
We know too much. So I need you to go back in time
22:24
when you were that customer or pick one of your ideal
22:26
customers, or pick a friend that you know that needs this and
22:29
step into their shoes, right? So that's where I want you to
22:33
start. I want you to write.
22:33
That script and then we can go backwards and we can start to
22:38
put things in place along the journey that will have them
22:40
authentically share that script and and what ends up happening.
22:45
So most of our businesses, we spend, we, we got to fill the
22:48
funnel, right? We got to get more business.
22:49
I get that. But we spend all of our focus
22:52
trying to get strangers to say yes instead of taking the people
22:55
that did say yes, our customers and obsessing and focusing on
22:59
them and helping them get those results.
23:01
We miss that most businesses. And that's where I started
23:04
saying, like in theater, everything's about the audience.
23:07
Your customers are your audience, your employees are
23:10
your audience, your partners and vendors are your audience.
23:14
They're different audiences. But if we focus on how to help
23:16
all of those people be successful, the stories that we
23:19
get, they're powerful. That becomes the best marketing
23:23
to fill your funnel that you can and we'll bring the right fit
23:26
clients in. And it's also going to give you
23:29
a lot more power because what ends up happening, like we think
23:33
of like the ideal outcome as we call it the R4.
23:36
We want clients who rave about their experience.
23:38
We want clients who renew their subscriptions or their
23:42
memberships in your programs. We want them to, you know,
23:46
purchase, you know, more products like, so we want them
23:50
to, you know, want, what else do you have?
23:53
What else do you offer? Right?
23:55
So we looking for that. And then ultimately we want them
23:58
to go out and not just refer customers, but recruit customers
24:03
like where they're actively going out and saying, dude,
24:05
you've got to go work with Jason.
24:06
Like he's amazing and it's going to change your life.
24:09
Like do not just don't question it, Go do it right?
24:12
Ryan's going to help you more than anybody else.
24:15
And we all have had customers that do that, that they're like
24:17
so passionate. And if you have an online
24:19
business like affiliate marketing becomes a big thing
24:22
when your customers become your affiliates because they had such
24:26
a transformation, The authenticity that they share the
24:29
stories with and that they market with, they're powerful.
24:32
They're more powerful. Than anything else you can do.
24:35
So that's why I want you to start by writing that story in a
24:38
powerful way first. And it's not just the result,
24:41
it's the journey. I, I love that if you think of
24:45
like a, you know, a concert, for example, you know, you've got an
24:49
opening band, you've got another band, you got the headliner as a
24:54
production coordinator or lighting guy or someone involved
24:56
with the show, You're not going to use the same light setup that
25:00
you're going to use for the headliner.
25:02
And even when the headliner's playing, you're not going to
25:04
start with the biggest, craziest scene, you're going to end with
25:10
it. And so you're literally planning
25:11
the night and you're, if you're a DJ, you're doing the same
25:14
thing you're starting with, you know, you're more chill stuff
25:17
and you're kind of building a vibe and you're going through
25:20
and you, you peek and then you slow it down to close the night
25:23
out. And so there's always kind of a
25:25
flow to it. And I, I love your thought
25:28
process coming from the production side of thing and
25:32
putting it into retail and sales and, and telling the story and
25:36
getting it out there. I, I haven't worked with, you
25:39
know, giant clients like Foot Locker to the scale of building
25:45
the whole store out. But I have worked with Macy's.
25:47
And one of the things that we used to do back in the day is I
25:51
would come in and I would set up a sound systems and basic lights
25:55
and they would do product demos for like cooking.
25:59
And they'd bring a chef in and he would, and we'd mic up the
26:03
chef and we'd, I'd play some music beforehand.
26:06
And then he would actually cook a meal in front of the, the
26:09
people that came to, to watch him cook.
26:13
And then he would, he would use the actual products that they
26:18
are selling. So he, he would walk over and
26:20
open a new package with a knife in it and use it right in front
26:23
of them. Oh, this is great.
26:25
And and then they would get the taste this meal that was made
26:29
before their eyes and they could see that, you know, they could
26:32
do this. And now, hey, why don't I go buy
26:34
that same product? Why don't I go do this?
26:37
And it's kind of the same kind of thing.
26:39
Storytelling at a, at a smaller scale than, you know, creating
26:42
the whole production of going through the store, but actually
26:45
seeing someone use the product and then tasting that meal is,
26:50
you know, equivalent to the same thing.
26:52
You're telling the story in the process and you're you're
26:55
building that story. So I love.
26:57
That, yeah, me too. And so I love that.
27:00
That's a great example. Macy's happened to be a client
27:01
that we worked with as well. And so one of the things we did
27:04
for them, as a similar example, is we would go into the swimsuit
27:08
section, right, And we would change the lighting so we'd have
27:11
brighter lighting there and we'd lower the lighting elsewhere so
27:14
it felt warmer, it looked. Warm, natural draw into.
27:18
Natural draw in and then we had it was all track lighting,
27:21
right, And so we actually created a scent diffuser that
27:24
looked like a track head, just like the other lights, but it
27:27
would spray the scent or like blow this scent over these like
27:30
they were like polymer beads that had the scent impregnated
27:33
in them and it would just be a little fan that but but it
27:35
smelled like Hawaiian tropics suntan lotion.
27:38
And so when you're in that area, you just felt like you were at
27:41
the beach. We had some like wave sounds and
27:43
whatever. And swimsuit sales went up
27:45
because people felt like, oh, it's the season now.
27:49
Right. And I love it.
27:50
How do we how do we do that? Right.
27:52
And it is about using as many of the senses as we can.
27:55
In theatre, we do that. That's why we like the costumes
27:58
matter, the lighting, the sound, the props, the, you know, all of
28:01
those things. It, it all matters.
28:03
It helps to tell the story right?
28:05
And that's what we're all doing right?
28:07
And if we're smart, we're the guides and our customers are the
28:10
heroes in our journey, and we're helping them write their success
28:15
story. And if we're part of that as
28:17
their guide, they're going to pay homage, they're going to
28:19
share that, they're going to tell other people.
28:21
And like people talk about two opposite ends of the spectrum.
28:24
When something sucks and when it's awesome, the middle doesn't
28:27
matter, right? And so like, we have an
28:30
opportunity, all of us in our businesses and our personal
28:32
lives, we have an opportunity to give people things to talk
28:35
about, right? But it's going to be this end or
28:38
this end. So you got to choose.
28:40
And what I see is the biggest mistake.
28:42
So I'm going to just throw out like a caveat.
28:44
People try and like there's this thing we call the cursive over
28:47
delivery. They think like like lower
28:50
expectations and over deliver. What Over delivery in a chronic
28:54
sense, when you're always trying to over deliver, it overwhelms,
28:58
right? We can win and lose customers in
29:00
a micro moment. So what we have to do once we
29:03
really understand what's going on in our customers, who those
29:05
avatars are, I'll come back to that in a second.
29:07
Then we can find key moments where over delivery will be well
29:11
received, where they'll really appreciate it and feel it and
29:14
feel the gratitude and it will help them move forward in a
29:18
bigger way to get bigger results.
29:21
But if everything's over delivery, there's no context for
29:24
over delivery. It becomes expectation and then
29:27
it's just normal. It's no more.
29:29
So all you're doing is making it more work for the company, more
29:32
expense for the company, overwhelmed for the person and
29:36
they're not even appreciating it.
29:37
Well, and I think this goes back to your earlier point about, you
29:40
know, intentionality, right? I mean, the reason people over
29:42
deliver, right, is because they're trying to win repeat
29:44
business or they're really trying to impress people.
29:47
But the times that it works the best, at least, you know, in my
29:50
own experience as a consumer, are the times when it's totally
29:53
unexpected and it's just somebody kind of hooking you up.
29:56
They're just doing the thing to help you, you know, and it's not
29:59
built into the formula. It's not something their boss
30:01
encouraged them to do, but it's just, you know, a human on
30:04
human, you know, emotional connection where they see you
30:07
need a little something and they're helping you out.
30:09
Or you know what, let me go on back and see there might be 1
30:12
back there or let me do whatever.
30:13
But it's something above and beyond the expectation.
30:17
And I think that that's a really good point because we do,
30:19
especially in today's society. I mean, you know, I think just
30:23
kind of with the advent of technology and, and all the
30:25
sorts of things that are going on in modern marketing, it's
30:29
really easy to be overwhelmed anyway.
30:31
There's so much noise, there's so much everything and some
30:33
manic customer service representative that's going out
30:36
of control to over deliver. It just kind of adds to that
30:39
noise, right? It feels unauthentic.
30:41
It doesn't feel realistic and it feels like this is something
30:45
that is part of this process. And I just know every time I
30:48
come to store X that they're always going to do this weird
30:51
thing. You know, for me, it's kind of
30:52
the, and maybe this isn't a great example, but it's like at
30:56
Chick-fil-A when they say pleasure at the end of their
30:58
thing. So it's, you know, pleasure to
31:00
serve you or whatever. And for me, it's a little much,
31:02
right? I would rather have something
31:03
that because when they all say pleasure, it doesn't mean
31:05
anything. You know, pleasure is just
31:07
pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. Everybody says pleasure and it
31:09
sounds a little bit creepy. One of the.
31:11
Biggest. But if somebody you know gives
31:13
you a good authentic, you know, hey, thanks for coming by.
31:15
It was awesome to have you today.
31:16
You know, whatever like that would be so out of place in a
31:18
sea full of pleasures that you would be like kind of taken
31:22
aback by it, I think. And so I think there's room to
31:24
do stuff that's a little off script and and I think it could
31:27
be maybe even more impactful. As a, as a consumer as well, one
31:31
of the biggest turn offs for me is when it clicks that I'm being
31:34
sold to, you know, when, when it's, you're having a
31:38
conversation and it turns into a sales pitch or it's forced.
31:41
And it's, it's not like your subtle lighting and scent kind
31:46
of thing, you know, like the, the subliminal kind of things I
31:49
think go a lot further for me than the, the guy trying to sell
31:53
me a condo on a vacation. You know, it's like the forest
31:58
portion of it or the the commercial that you know it.
32:01
It really, really ticks me off when I'm watching something and
32:04
I don't realize it's a commercial and I realize I sat
32:07
through a commercial because I just hate commercials.
32:10
You know what I mean? But.
32:13
Totally to. Ryan's point, yeah.
32:15
Well, and you know what's interesting about that?
32:17
Just using the example of your infusing scent into the area,
32:20
right? I think if I was really gonna
32:22
play devil's advocate, I imagine there are people who might be
32:25
like, well, they're just trying to trick me, whatever.
32:27
And those are the cynics of the world and those are the people
32:29
we can't plan for. But I think what it does, which
32:32
is maybe the more important part or maybe the piece to call out
32:35
in this is it brings back a memory from your youth.
32:38
It connects you to a memory of being on the beach.
32:40
It does a thing. And so whatever it does, I mean,
32:42
you call it subliminal marketing and call it whatever you want to
32:45
call it. But what it is doing is
32:46
triggering something real in a person where it's an emotional
32:48
connection. And I think a lot of times, and
32:50
again, maybe just in our sort of hyper, you know, consumer world
32:54
that we live in, people lose sight of their connection with
32:58
the things that they buy. And sometimes it's really easy
33:00
just to hit buy and, and you just don't even think about it.
33:02
Like I don't really think a lot about the connection I have
33:04
between the thing I bought on Amazon or whatever.
33:07
Like I'm not really that invested in it.
33:09
But for in person stuff, especially and, and some online
33:12
experiences, I think that emotional touch, like is the
33:16
whole difference, right? I mean, it is, I feel good about
33:20
the decision because of, you know, some other thing that's
33:23
totally outside of the, or the company's control, but, you
33:26
know, they had the wherewithal to make a connection with me on
33:29
an emotional level. And so I'm choosing, you know,
33:32
there's that old saying that you do business people business with
33:35
people, you know, like and trust.
33:37
And so, and it's kind of like that on a, on a consumer level,
33:39
right? I mean, you buy the products
33:41
that you know, or you have an affinity for a brand or that you
33:44
trust and that they, they have served you well or you believe
33:47
they will. And so I think that that
33:49
insight, you know, more than just sort of subliminal
33:51
marketing or whatever, I think that the insight of making an
33:54
emotional connection with your customers or prospective
33:56
customers, you know, might be the most valuable thing you can
33:59
do. And I think that's kind of what
34:00
you're saying with evoking these responses from folks?
34:02
100% yeah. I got I have three things to
34:04
share so that were triggered by this last conversation, which I
34:07
love so much. This has been so much fun guys.
34:09
I'm so glad that we're doing this.
34:11
So. So first of all, there's a great
34:13
quote that's like it's either good design or great design is
34:18
the absence of distraction. Yeah, right.
34:20
And I think as we like look at our businesses, as we look at
34:23
the things we design, market our websites, whatever, like we have
34:27
to be focused, right? Like we don't want to distract
34:30
people. And I think when you over
34:31
deliver all the time, whatever, we're distracting people, right.
34:34
So I think it's just a great quote.
34:35
I don't know who said it, it wasn't me.
34:37
I just think it's a powerful quote.
34:39
The second thing I want to share is, you know, along the lines of
34:42
what you're saying, right? So this intentionality is
34:44
important. I don't think any of this as
34:46
subliminal. I think what you said is
34:48
absolutely true. The number one thing that we
34:50
focus on is how our customers are feeling, right?
34:54
And so in our formula, right, we call it the kinetic customer
34:56
formula, there's four key variables.
34:59
There's attitudes, there's behaviors, there's friction, and
35:03
there's momentum, right? And so attitudes are what people
35:06
are thinking and expecting, right?
35:09
Behaviors are what they're doing.
35:12
Friction is what's stopping them, and momentum is what's
35:16
moving them forward, right? And so like, those are the key
35:18
variables. But what changes, like all of
35:22
these things is how they're feeling, right?
35:24
If something feels hard or something feels difficult or
35:27
something feels good or feels easy, it's it.
35:30
It helps get people results. And as we define like what is a
35:35
client's experience? A client's experience is how
35:38
your customer feels after interacting with your brand.
35:42
It's their perception, right? It may not be always reality
35:46
because remember someone's journey.
35:47
We can't control what happened before they.
35:49
Got to our website, they could have had the worst day ever.
35:52
We don't know what happened. Then they had they got to our
35:55
website, they saw our ad, something happened or they
35:58
stepped in our retail store. They're coming in with that
36:00
baggage. And so as a salesperson or a
36:03
customer advocate or whatever, as a team member, we have to be
36:08
empathetic. We have to understand our
36:10
customers and we have to understand the journeys that
36:13
they're going on. And it is about that feeling and
36:14
acknowledging that and seeing that.
36:17
And so often we're on script like you were saying, like,
36:19
right, you know, when we're just saying the words, but we're not
36:22
looking at the reaction. So I think what you said is so
36:25
beautiful. It's like we have to give
36:27
permission to people to go off script, right?
36:29
But the context of the show and the theme.
36:33
So our mission, our vision, our values of of our businesses
36:37
inform what's safe to do off script and allow them to be the
36:42
individuals that people get to know, like and trust.
36:45
But they're part of the brand story.
36:47
They do it within those. So I hear people all the time,
36:51
especially small business owners, mission, vision, values
36:53
for big companies. It's not, it's just not like you
36:56
need that to guide the direction of your business.
36:59
The way I help people scale businesses is by having clarity.
37:03
In all of these. Things, right, Clarity allows
37:05
your team to thrive. It allows your customers to
37:06
thrive. And we've been talking a lot
37:08
about expectations, right? Like if we don't set
37:11
expectations for our team and for our customers, guess what?
37:14
They have them anyway. And then we're going to have,
37:17
we're not going to be guaranteed to be in alignment, right?
37:20
And so it's just so important that perception that our
37:23
customers have. If we set expectations and we
37:25
manage them well, then we can definitely find the key moments
37:28
to over deliver because we're making sure that we we deliver.
37:32
And most, I mean, how many bad experiences do you hear on
37:36
social media or from friends? Like that's what most people
37:38
talk about. It's not usually the amazing
37:40
stuff that seems to be less frequent that people are, are
37:44
having those amazing experiences.
37:46
It's more frequent that something just pissed them off
37:49
and it can, you know, one of the.
37:51
One of the things we say to people all the time is like.
37:52
You can have go from having a raving fan to a raving lunatic
37:56
in an instant because you could drop the ball as a company and
37:59
they could have been so charged up and so happy.
38:01
And then that one thing coupled with whatever else is going on
38:05
in the world can make them be really angry and really upset.
38:08
So as our businesses, we really do have to be mindful of how
38:11
people feel. It's just so.
38:13
Important I'd like to maybe talk about I want to share kind of a
38:16
personal experience because I'm going through one of these right
38:18
now where I'm, you know, we're investing in a well, not
38:21
investing. We're investing in that.
38:23
It's costing me and my wife a lot of money, but we're in the
38:26
process of trying to get our oldest son recruited into
38:29
college to play football. And so we did a ton of shopping.
38:33
We did a ton of research. Finally somebody gave us a
38:35
recommendation of company to engage with for this, this kind
38:39
of work. They do.
38:40
They're, you know, the biggest one in the country and all this
38:43
stuff. And you know, and just to give
38:44
you guys an idea, I mean, you know, we're talking to the tune
38:47
of five grand, right? So I mean, this is not a little
38:49
investment to work with this company and what I've discovered
38:54
in working with them. And I won't name them here, but
38:57
the big thing that happened for me, and I think that this is
39:01
something that we could maybe explore, you may have examples
39:03
of and how we overcome it is there's big disconnect between
39:07
what you think you're getting for the money and what they're
39:09
delivering for the money. Now there's multiple aspects of
39:12
their business, right? And so, I mean, there's a piece
39:14
of the business that's, you know, one-on-one coaching and
39:17
things like that. And the people side seems to be
39:18
pretty good. Although to, to nod back to, to
39:21
Mike's comment earlier about feeling sold all the time.
39:24
These guys feel like they're always selling you.
39:25
They're always asking for a survey.
39:27
Hey, we talked for 15 minutes. Can you fill out the survey?
39:30
You know, and I, I know why companies do this stuff, but it
39:32
just feels a little, it's like, OK, I already gave you the
39:34
money. Stop, stop with this.
39:35
And so, but, but the other aspect that's happening is like,
39:39
so for example, their software feels really Yankee, their app
39:42
barely works, you know, these kinds of things.
39:44
So you've invested all this money in this company.
39:46
And like I said, they're the biggest one in the country.
39:48
So they, I mean, no shortage of money coming in.
39:51
And they're clearly, in my opinion anyway, the biggest in
39:53
the country because they spend more on marketing than anybody
39:56
than, you know, investing in their own business or whatever
39:59
and building a true, you know, a, a platform that could
40:02
actually serve their customers better.
40:04
Sure. And So what what I want to try
40:06
and have a discussion around is this concept of disconnect or
40:09
sort of the the difference of? You know, a customer's
40:13
expectation versus what the customer receives.
40:16
And I'm at least objective enough to recognize I may have
40:19
come into this with some expectation that they didn't set
40:22
right arbitrarily. X number of dollars means X
40:26
level of value to me, but that doesn't necessarily have any
40:28
relationship to what they believe, right?
40:30
So, so, you know, in their defense, you know, maybe they're
40:33
doing the right thing for, for the dollar amount, but that's
40:36
been my big take away from this experience.
40:38
And I actually would have, you know, to your point about you
40:41
only really talk about the best or the worst.
40:43
They, they sent me a survey yesterday asking about, you
40:46
know, would you recommend us to somebody?
40:48
And I wrote back this long review about, well, the people
40:51
are great. You know, I don't want this to
40:52
reflect on the person, but be aware that every other aspect of
40:55
your, your operation is a let down.
40:58
And you know, and so, you know, of course I hear back from
41:01
everybody today and everything but, but so for companies like
41:05
this, so let's say that a company like this engages with
41:08
you guys, they, they recognize, hey, you know what we're getting
41:10
reviews like this that are, you know, we've got some things
41:13
right, other things aren't right.
41:14
And we want to try and, you know, fix this disconnect or
41:16
manage the disconnect between what customers are expecting and
41:19
what customers are getting. How would you approach something
41:22
like that? Or how would you encourage a
41:24
company like that to try and resolve that disconnect?
41:28
Because I suspect that this is something that happens a lot and
41:30
probably more with like luxury goods and other things or maybe
41:33
luxury companies, companies are better at this.
41:35
But you know, there's this threshold of stuff is expensive.
41:38
Everything costs more now than it used to, even all the way
41:40
down to a cheeseburger. You know, also I'll get the same
41:43
bump if I pay $14.00 for a hamburger and it sucks, you know
41:46
what I mean? Like, you know, so I mean, I'll
41:48
get that same bump or that same sort of emotional reaction.
41:51
And so how do you go to, you know, or how would you advise a
41:53
company that's having a problem like this?
41:55
You know, maybe it's known to them, maybe it isn't and and
41:58
help them sort of get over that hump or, or work to to meet
42:01
expectations. Yeah.
42:02
And this is a very great question, very great topic for
42:05
discussion. So and I have countless of my
42:08
own stories from the past two weeks that are similar, right.
42:11
So there's a great stat that I share in our program and it's
42:14
that, you know, for every one customer that complaints, 26
42:19
others remain silent. I want you to think about that
42:22
for a second. It's the sleeper cell in your
42:24
business. So you have a cancer and you
42:26
don't know about it. And then finally you find
42:29
something on a scan and then you start to look and it's already
42:32
everywhere, right? And you didn't know about it
42:35
because people didn't care enough to actually even tell
42:38
you. They were so disconnected, so
42:40
upset, whatever. And so like you sharing that is
42:43
actually a gift to them. Hopefully they see it that way.
42:46
Most of us don't, especially smaller business owners because
42:49
it's our egos, like our egos and our identity as a small business
42:52
owner entrepreneur often times get connected to that and it's
42:55
like it's attacking us, not the system or the process or
42:58
whatever. Yeah.
42:59
And just as a note on that, I'll just add that, you know, I did
43:02
get the text from our guy, our our trainer guy or our
43:07
recruiting coach saying, oh man, I'm sorry.
43:09
You know, X company isn't meeting your, your expectations.
43:12
You know, I'm really sorry about that.
43:13
Anything I can do, let me know. But this isn't a him problem.
43:16
This is a company problem. And so I do fear that he's the
43:19
one seeing this negativity or this, you know, critique.
43:22
And probably got the chain. He probably got chewed out for
43:25
something when really it wasn't him that caused it, it was
43:29
everyone else. But he's the the guy that was
43:32
focused because. He's well and which is which I
43:34
hope is not the case right, but I can see how you know the
43:36
feedback placed with the wrong person.
43:38
Could, you know, maybe fall on deaf ears for.
43:40
Sure. You know, I even think I, I use
43:41
the analogy of FedEx often, right?
43:43
Like so if you think about it, right, there's a system that
43:47
actually does most of the work in FedEx and then there's the
43:51
exception handling system that deals with all the stuff that
43:54
falls off or gets broken. And so like our systems have to
43:58
be working, right? The reason that the theater
44:01
experience and the rock'n'roll experience, we have the same
44:04
people laughing and doing the same thing night after night is
44:07
because it is a system, right? And it's rehearsed and it's
44:10
practiced and we get feedback from the audience and then we
44:14
tweak it and we adjust it. We might call another rehearsal
44:16
and fix something or reprogram or re queue or do something
44:20
different, right? And so, you know, in our
44:23
businesses, like this is an opportunity, first of all, when
44:26
something bad happens, right, or unexpected or or negative
44:30
happens, it's an opportunity to deepen the relationship based on
44:33
how you show up and how you handle it, right?
44:36
So like if they took your perspective to heart and they
44:39
said, look, we'd love to talk to you a little bit more about what
44:41
your expectations are, where we miss that.
44:43
Would you be open to a 30 minute phone call, Zoom call, whatever.
44:47
So you can really explain that because we want to try and make
44:49
this right for you. And so that call, you could be
44:52
sharing that and they could reset your expectations, say
44:54
we're sorry, we actually have to fix some of our messaging in the
44:57
beginning because we that's actually not what we do at this
45:00
price point. You might be like, oh, OK, I
45:02
understand that. So how can I get that done?
45:05
They may have a solution. They may be able to do something
45:07
for you. We don't know.
45:08
It also may be, you know what, like there's this whole part of,
45:12
you know, the thing that you didn't know about or you know,
45:15
who knows like what? But but having that
45:16
conversation, at least it gives you an opportunity to explore
45:20
that and expand that. And for them, like if again, if
45:23
one customer has this problem, I guarantee you more do it.
45:26
It. It almost always is not a one,
45:28
especially with a larger company like you're saying, there's
45:30
there's almost no chance that it's just you.
45:33
Well, and it's interesting, like with this audience of people
45:35
too, right, because you have your selection of sort of, I
45:38
don't know, probably above middle class, you know,
45:41
relatively well to do families that are that are putting money
45:44
into their their kids to try and get them into college.
45:46
You have sort of that group of people.
45:48
And this is largely, you know, not your super elite guys,
45:50
right? They're getting grabbed anyway,
45:51
right? So you're the sort of the next
45:53
tier down and, you know, you're trying to find a good
45:56
opportunity for yourself, something like that.
45:58
So you've got sort of this class of people who are the little
46:00
bit, you know, more well to do. They've got some money, you
46:02
know, expendable income to, to throw at something like this.
46:05
But on the other end of that, and just from, you know,
46:08
different communities, my, my kid has played football and I
46:10
have a little bit of experience in this.
46:12
You also have the people who they're spending their last
46:15
Jelly Bean to to buy that thing, of course.
46:17
And so for them, you know, especially around price and
46:19
price sensitivities, you know, I mean, the expectation is
46:22
somebody who like, you know, we we're probably going to be short
46:26
on rent this month so that I can make sure my kid has this
46:28
opportunity. Yeah.
46:29
You know, is, is going to be different than the person who
46:31
just maybe this is some expendable money and this, you
46:33
know, they just don't want to do the leg work themselves or
46:35
something. So I think that, you know,
46:37
knowing that, you know, and I assume a company like this knows
46:39
because they work, you know, exclusively with athletes, they
46:42
should have some understanding this kind of dichotomy.
46:44
You know, there is a, I guess what you would hope for is that
46:49
they have the insight to do this, right.
46:51
And I mean, I work with, I run a marketing agency, but I also
46:55
work with the software development firm.
46:57
And I can tell you that sometimes you have to like kick
47:00
a feature down the road like, so maybe I can't fix the app today
47:03
because I just can't. There's business functions at
47:05
play. But what I would have loved to
47:08
hear or have happened is get an e-mail from somebody on their
47:11
customer success team and say exactly like you described, hey,
47:15
I'd like to have a conversation with you and see, if for nothing
47:18
else, maybe I can't do anything about it right now.
47:20
But let me talk to you and understand what you're doing and
47:22
then I'll give you the business case.
47:23
Hey, man, we allocate so much money to marketing to be the top
47:27
guys in the country that they only allocate this much to
47:30
development. They only do so much.
47:32
You know, what I suspect is happening is they really invest
47:34
on their front end sales funnel and it's all about getting
47:36
people in. And then it's maybe it's a
47:39
little dramatic to call it a rug pull, but I think the the idea
47:42
is that you sort of land on a product that's satisfactory.
47:45
That's exactly what I, where I started, right?
47:46
It's, that's, we put all of our focus on getting strangers and
47:50
we don't focus on the success of our customers.
47:52
And so let me just ask you this, right?
47:54
I, I, I think I already know the answer, but how niche is your
47:57
community? Like, do you know lots of other
47:59
people because of the circles that you run in with the other
48:01
athletes that would love to know about a service like this, that
48:04
if you were like loving it, you told them they would almost
48:06
guaranteed go buy it? Yep, Especially in our
48:09
community. They're, I mean, they're like
48:11
our son is going into a senior year of football.
48:13
Yeah. He, you know, is, is actually
48:16
kind of late to the recruiting game if he wants to get
48:18
recruited. And, you know, but he's got a
48:21
little brother coming up. He's got friends that his little
48:23
brother plays football with. He's got all the guys he plays
48:25
football with who are seniors that are looking to graduate,
48:27
who are looking to go to college, you know, all that kind
48:30
of stuff. So there's a big audience of
48:31
people. And right now, let's say, you
48:33
know, just for, for round numbers, let's say there's 100
48:36
people in our sphere. Yeah.
48:38
Like if any of them came to me and said, hey, what are you
48:40
doing for, for Ethan to help him get recruited, You know, I don't
48:44
know that I would scream to the mountain tops.
48:46
You ought to call these guys. You might actually say don't
48:48
call these guys right or caveat M tour buyer beware if you do
48:53
XYZ right. So here's the thing.
48:55
Lifetime value, right? Like it doesn't like if.
48:58
You know, so you, you spent 5 grand, which is great.
49:00
That's a, that's a good amount of money.
49:02
It's a nice sale for them. But now, just within your own
49:05
family, there's other. $5000 packages to be sold and then in
49:09
your circle of influence. You just said there's probably
49:12
100 people, right? So 5000 * 100 is a lot of money.
49:17
It's a half, $1,000,000 that could be attributed to making
49:21
you happy. And they're not doing it.
49:23
So they're foolishly putting their money on the front end of
49:27
the funnel instead of solving this where you would be filling
49:29
that funnel automagically, even without asking for an affiliate
49:33
fee, just to be helpful because they did a great job.
49:36
And this is the problem. I don't care if you're as big as
49:39
this company or even smaller businesses.
49:41
This is exactly. The issue?
49:43
We help people. Solve and and then some, right?
49:46
Because if you want to scale your business, this part after
49:49
the sale has to be functioning is at some point you can keep
49:53
trying to outspend the competition and pour all the
49:55
dollars that you have in there. But people are not going to be
49:58
happy with the bait and switch. And they're going to rise up at
50:00
some point and there's going to be so much negativity or so many
50:03
people not getting results that it's not going to be viable to
50:06
continue anymore. Well, and it's interesting too,
50:08
just because of the way the college sports have changed even
50:10
just in the last couple years and continue to change the
50:13
model. Used to be maybe you would have
50:15
started with a company like this a little earlier than we did.
50:18
We might be a little late to the game, but basically they get you
50:21
recruited, you're off to college, we're done.
50:24
Like you paid for this membership or whatever, but
50:26
really you're done by the time the kid signs a deal with
50:28
college. So at that point you don't use
50:31
it anymore. Well, now because of the way
50:32
that recruiting is done, they're doing less recruiting, at least
50:35
in football. I don't know other sports very
50:37
well. At least in football, they're
50:38
doing less recruiting out of the high schools than they used to
50:41
do. And now they're pulling kids out
50:42
of transfer portal, which is sort of this new, you know,
50:45
place where college kids can make themselves eligible to move
50:48
to other schools. And and so they're starting to
50:51
pull kids out of there. So now their model has shifted
50:53
to we're with you all the way till college graduation.
50:56
So, right, So as part of this purchase, you know that they're
50:59
trying to to sell you into that's part of the agreement now
51:01
is that now you have basically access to this platform all the
51:04
way through. And then you have your coaches
51:06
and your, your recruiting helpers and stuff like that to
51:09
get you through transfer portal and all this other stuff to help
51:11
you look for opportunities, right.
51:13
So now that you're asking for not just, you know, a year
51:16
relationship, now you now we have a five year relationship.
51:18
It's like, but the value needs to be even bigger or greater
51:21
than it was before. Like they've actually scaled
51:23
into needing to be even better at this stuff than they are.
51:26
And so, so it's kind of an interesting thing that there's,
51:29
you know, a business pressure on the outside of them that's
51:32
leading, you know, going to require that they be better at
51:34
their their craft and that they develop new tools and things
51:37
like that for this new situation, you know, and you
51:41
know, but they're actually still kind of living in the past, even
51:43
though you use this as a, a sales tool.
51:45
Yeah, it's, it's I, I mean, I appreciate you bringing this up
51:48
because it, it, this really is like an epidemic.
51:52
I mean, honestly, you know, and, and so even if it's the
51:54
smallest, you know, business like, you know, in like it's a
51:58
mom and pop brick and mortar, right?
52:00
Like if you deliver that service, and a lot of them do
52:02
because they know their customers and people like
52:04
they'll pay more for a bag of dog food at the local pet shop
52:07
than going online for a lot of people, right?
52:09
Because they want that level of connection, commitment, service,
52:12
so on so forth. It's important that we really do
52:15
think about how do we help our customers like how do we help
52:17
them get success? And when we add friction, right,
52:20
you know, I have this I have this T-shirt aware that says get
52:22
the F out, get the friction out. Stop making it hard for your
52:26
customers to do business with you, right?
52:28
Because we're doing that these guys made it hard for you.
52:31
The app's not working. This is not happening.
52:33
You're having a complaint. The guy that wasn't the problem,
52:36
who didn't, wasn't really able to solve it says, hey, let me
52:38
know if I can do something that was not helpful, right?
52:41
You know, And so at the end of the day, like, you know, and
52:44
even if they so I, I had this crazy situation where I ordered
52:47
some food on an app and it was one of these new kitchens that
52:50
opens up where they have like 10 different restaurants that they
52:52
serve out of one like pick up place, right.
52:54
Yeah, these ghost restaurants or whatever.
52:56
Yeah, exactly. And so, so we were like, all
52:58
right, let's try it. Because like we always have that
53:00
issue. Like this person wants this,
53:01
this person wants that. Somebody wants pizza, somebody
53:03
wants Chinese, somebody wants whatever.
53:05
So we said. OK, let's try it.
53:06
So we did. We spent 120 bucks for all the
53:09
people that were getting the food and we got the food.
53:13
And when I tell you, like one of the people got a cheese steak,
53:16
it didn't look like meat. Like it was like disgusting
53:19
looking and it didn't taste good.
53:21
And then somebody else got a salad and there was like, it was
53:24
like not an, it was not even as big as a side salad.
53:26
And it was like, you know, 15 bucks or whatever.
53:29
And it's like just more and more and more.
53:31
So I, I, I can't help myself, right?
53:33
So I put a note in there and he's like, you know, he's like,
53:36
we're going to give you a $10 credit to come back.
53:39
Why would I want to come back? I don't, I don't want that.
53:42
I wasn't writing in to get a credit.
53:43
First of all, like, and I made that clear in my first thing.
53:46
Listen, I'm not looking for like, you know, give me, you
53:48
know, a little stop here because I, I had a complaint.
53:51
I want you to know about this. You're a new business in our
53:53
area. I love the concept, but there's
53:55
a problem here. And they missed that.
53:57
And then at that point, it's like, look like we basically
54:00
threw out the food and then we went to a diner, right?
54:02
So we didn't eat it because nobody was happy and like the
54:06
right thing to do at that point was to refund the meal and say,
54:08
give us another try, not give me $10 and say try it again.
54:12
But they didn't do that. And and I just said to him,
54:14
dude, like, just close my account.
54:15
Like we're not trying it again. And you know, they've been in,
54:20
they've been here for probably two months.
54:22
I know they're still new, but like, there's got to be a
54:25
certain level of quality. It's food, you know, and we're
54:28
not that picky. Like, I'm not a crazy foodie.
54:30
Like just needs to be decent and it wasn't.
54:33
Well, like we were talking earlier too, there's such AI
54:35
mean just, you know, sort of economically speaking that
54:37
everything is so expensive now. And, and a lot of these apps
54:40
like the doordashes of the world, like restaurants up
54:43
charge for things. You know, it's $1.95 in store,
54:46
but it's 295 or 395 on the app, you know, So it's like, so
54:50
you're paying extra for the privilege of, hey, somebody's
54:52
bringing it to my house and all that stuff, right?
54:54
And I was happy to do that, right?
54:56
That wasn't an issue for me. I'm happy to pay for service,
54:58
convenience, whatever, but we were still paying.
55:02
It was like 5 people for 120 bucks for kind of fast food
55:05
basically, and which is it's expensive, right?
55:09
I mean, it's a lot of money and it just was horrible.
55:12
So it's like, that's the thing, Like I'm not gonna buy from them
55:15
again. I'm not going to tell anybody
55:17
else. But if it was great, I would
55:18
have told everybody, hey, did you know about this new thing
55:20
that opened in our area? You got to check it out.
55:22
They would have had a dozen customers that came in with 0
55:25
acquisition cost for them. Zero.
55:29
Well, the, I keep thinking about like, you know, a movie, for
55:34
example, like they spend all this time and they're making
55:37
this movie, they're doing all these different scenes and then
55:40
they have the final cut process. And what they do is they sit
55:43
down and they have, you know, people screen and watch the
55:46
movie and they watch the audience and they watch the
55:49
reactions and they make edits and cuts based off of reactions
55:54
of the people. And they'll go through, you
55:56
know, and they'll show it to 50 different audiences and try and
55:59
get the best bits and pieces and, and hone that in.
56:05
And that's kind of, you know, like we're we're almost out of
56:10
time, but that's kind of like the the process that I think
56:13
we're kind of getting that with everything that we've talked
56:15
about up to this. Amen.
56:17
This deal is we you want that feedback, you want to know that
56:21
your salad was too small and you could have gotten a better salad
56:24
at Denny's for 5 bucks. You know, like if they don't
56:29
take that critique, if they don't take the feedback and make
56:33
edits, they're just going to go by the wayside.
56:36
They're not going to be relevant anymore and they're going to get
56:39
more negative press, more negative reviews of people not
56:42
wanting to go try it. Because Steve said this was my
56:45
experience with them. Why would I want to go there?
56:48
Well, and it's funny. Instead of yeah, it's like a
56:50
little bit counterintuitive, right?
56:51
Because the I don't think people are thinking about it that way.
56:55
It's almost kind of backwards thinking, but like by putting in
56:58
that work and doing that editing and that revision process, just
57:01
in my example with this recruiting company and in
57:03
Jason's example with this order food order system with just
57:09
those two things. I mean, if the whole premise
57:11
here around customer experience is scaling your business, if I
57:14
give you 100 new customers, I'm scaling your business.
57:16
Like that's the whole thing. They're praying like some guy
57:19
you don't even know is scaling your company.
57:21
And it's like, so I mean, if that's really what you're trying
57:23
to do is grow your business and scale your company, I mean, what
57:26
a great way. I mean, what a deal when you can
57:29
just do the right thing by somebody and they're gonna grow
57:31
your company for you. You don't even have to do
57:32
anything else. That's exactly, exactly it.
57:36
I love that. I love Mike.
57:37
I love what you were saying, too.
57:39
That's why in theatre they do previews and they they review it
57:41
and we practice, we rehearse. We have, you know, so, yeah,
57:45
it's so important. And it's more important today
57:46
than ever before, you know? And so I've been saying that for
57:49
30 years and it's more true today than it's ever been
57:52
before. So like just.
57:54
Love on your customers, focus on what's happening for them.
57:57
Step in their shoes. Shop your own experience and
58:00
look and see like how do I make it easier for someone to get the
58:03
result they want? And, and when you do that, it's
58:07
even more fun. Your team's going to grow
58:10
tighter and have more fun. You're going to attract better
58:12
fit employees that want to work for you.
58:14
Their customers are going to tell everybody else.
58:16
They're going to keep referring you.
58:17
They're going to remember the experience they had because
58:21
people forget what you said, they forget what you did.
58:23
They remember how you made them feel.
58:25
Maya Angelou, great quote. You want to make sure that
58:28
you're focusing on that. Yeah, I love that.
58:31
Well, here we are getting to the end of the show then.
58:34
So maybe here in these last couple minutes, Jason, do you
58:36
just wanna take a minute and let people know where they can learn
58:38
a little bit more about sort of the CX formula process and the
58:42
course work that you guys do? Also maybe how people might get
58:44
in touch with you if they're so inclined.
58:46
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks guys.
58:48
So yeah, we have, you know, my website, cxformula.com.
58:51
Feel free to go check us out there, but I have a special gift
58:53
that you can't find on my website just for your audience.
58:56
So guys, this is a short PDF, take you less than 10 minutes to
59:00
go through, but it's going to give you a concept, a strategy
59:04
and a tactical execution of it that will change the way you
59:07
think about your business and your customers.
59:09
I'm not going to tell you what it is, you got to go download
59:11
it, but it's a gift.cxformula.com/eggs.
59:15
And like I said, it's 10 minutes of your life that I promise will
59:19
be worth it. And if you download it, actually
59:22
look at it. Don't let it be one of those
59:23
things. I download stuff and I find it
59:24
just sits in my Download file. Like look at it.
59:27
It's going to change stuff for you.
59:29
And if you don't mind, let me know if you use it like how it
59:32
worked for you. Love to hear about that.
59:34
My e-mail will be on that when you get it.
59:36
But it's jason@cxformula.com. And yeah, our, our programs are
59:41
available. We got a lot of great stuff that
59:42
can help you scale your businesses and solve some of
59:45
these problems. Guys, this has been a true
59:48
pleasure being with you. You create a great experience
59:50
for a guest on your podcast, so I appreciate that.
59:53
The conversation was really awesome.
59:55
Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, we really appreciate
59:57
this. And if you ever want to pitch
59:59
these guys, you know, you just let me know and we'll, we'll put
1:00:01
a little collab together and pitch this.
1:00:03
Yeah, we should. Now, like we should, like we
1:00:04
should help them. My son's going to.
1:00:06
Need this like so. My son is into football, he's
1:00:09
going into high school right now, he's working.
1:00:11
He had Chris Snee from the Giants, was his coach in like
1:00:16
the the grade school. Stuff like they're really a
1:00:18
great team and he's all in now. We're getting him a professional
1:00:21
coach that's working with him and he wants to go all the way
1:00:24
like this. I would be like asking you for
1:00:26
how do I contact them right now? Because you already said we
1:00:29
should have done it earlier, right?
1:00:30
So I would be like on the phone with them this afternoon.
1:00:32
I don't even know who they are right now.
1:00:34
Yeah, no, we'll, we'll have to circle back so maybe we can save
1:00:37
their business and get some, some credits.
1:00:40
We can get a deal to. Hook us up.
1:00:42
My son, though, would be wildly jealous of your boy because he
1:00:45
hit our our son's high school coach had a really brief stint
1:00:49
with the Giants. His name's Daniel Coates.
1:00:51
He played for the for the Bengals and the Broncos and all
1:00:54
these guys. But he he did a really short
1:00:56
stint with the Giants. And my son is like the world's
1:00:58
biggest Giants fan. So so that was a really big deal
1:01:01
for him. But poor, poor Daniel got cut
1:01:03
the year they won the Super Bowl.
1:01:05
So it was a real bummer for him. But but so he would he would
1:01:09
love to hear that your son was coached by a former giant.
1:01:11
That's a big deal problem. So anyway, but yes, so
1:01:14
seriously, you want to pitch these guys, Let's let's collab.
1:01:16
So in in the meantime, thanks so much for doing the show.
1:01:19
We really appreciate having you. Yeah.
1:01:21
Thank you. Absolutely.
1:01:22
And thanks so much to everybody who tunes in the show this week
1:01:24
and every week. We'll see you guys next.